


Quarantine

by TheElusiveOllie



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 19:24:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1561307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheElusiveOllie/pseuds/TheElusiveOllie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after “Seizure.” Rush wants to get Perry and Ginn out of quarantine in Destiny’s systems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quarantine

**Author's Note:**

> This is the exactly second piece of personal SGU fic I’ve done and I don’t know why I did it or how I feel about it but this is it here it is. Set after “Seizure”

“Bring them back,” Rush says without preamble as he enters Young’s quarters - without knocking, as per usual.

Young knows exactly what he’s talking about, and he doesn’t like it.

“Shouldn’t you be resting?” he stalls, but Rush ignores the sentiment.

“I’m fine now. I’m out of the neural interface, I’m safe. Now _get them out.”_

“We don’t know what the repercussions of that would be.” Young keeps his tone steady, indifferent, because seeing the ordinarily implacable scientist so out of sorts is somewhat worrying. “You were still in that chair when Eli pulled you out. We don’t know what reactivating those parts of the ship will do to you.”

“Parts of the ship?” Rush hisses, furious. “Those are _people.”_

“Oh, so you care about people now?” He knows Rush caught the subtle mockery in Young’s carefully measured voice, and the scientist’s rage becomes even more palpable. Young doesn’t think he’s ever seen the man express this much emotion. It unsettles him.

(Other than that one time with the nervous breakdown and the caffeine and nicotine withdrawal and that…well. Young tries not to think about that.)

Young pretends not to notice how Rush’s hands shake ever so slightly as he grips the edges of Young’s desk and leans forward.

“You should have Eli working on getting them out.” Hell, even his voice is tremoring. He can sense the anger coiled in the other man’s posture, and knows he needs to be careful. Rush is on edge, not to mention physically and mentally exhausted. Young wonders how discreetly he can radio TJ.

“You tried asking him?”

Rush’s jaw twitches and Young sees his hands curl into rigid fists as he backs away.

“He refused,” guesses the colonel quietly.

“Under your orders, he told me,” Rush fumes. _“Your_ orders.”

“Because until we can be sure we won’t be damaging _you_ by pulling them out of quarantine, we can’t risk trying!”

“Since when do you care about what happens to me?” the other man growls. “I seem to recall a time when you would have gladly left me on an alien planet. _Hypothetically,_ of course.”

Young grimaces. He’s going really going to bring that up now, is he?

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Rush, but you’ve saved our asses more times than I care to count. ‘Course, you’ve also put them in constant danger, but your sense of self-preservation is what’s caused us to last this long in this damned Ancient ship.”

“Well, don’t lay it on too thick, Colonel,” sneers Rush, and Young _despises_ the man so thoroughly in that moment that he’s tempted to lay him out right then and there.

“Whether or not any of us likes you, I’m forced to admit that we need you,” Young continues as steadily as he can, ignoring the interruption.

“Dr. Perry’s saved your lives as well. More than once, if you’ll recall,” Rush counters.

“And once we can figure out how to _safely_ get her and Ginn out of the systems we can discuss it then. Until then?” Young hits the door release to signal Rush’s dismissal. The scientist doesn’t budge.

“It’s not that simple,” he warns.

“Then come back when it is.”

Rush finally takes the hint and leaves. He walks stiffly and his hands jerk as if he’s about to grab the walls for support.

 _He really shouldn’t be walking, should he?_ Fucking typical. Young sighs and massages the bridge of his nose.

“Do I need to call TJ?”

The scientist doesn’t reply, though Young’s fairly certain he can hear a steady muttered stream of mangled Scottish expletives as Rush rounds the corner, out of the colonel’s sight.

—-

Eli is startled when he finds Rush hunched over one of the consoles in the control interface room, though in retrospect he’s not entirely sure why. Rush never deigned to listen to anyone, after all, least of all Young or TJ.

“What are you doing here?” he blurts out, and Rush doesn’t even bother to look up. “Shouldn’t you be in the infirmary?”

“I’m fine.”

Eli can see the way the scientist’s arms tremble as he leans against the console for support and decides, no, Rush really is in no way fine. Physically or otherwise.

Not that Eli cares. At all. _At all._

He doesn’t call attention to it. He’s still pissed at the man, after all, because it was his stupid, _reckless_ actions that got Ginn and Perry locked up in isolation within _Destiny_ ’s systems. The whole mess is entirely his fault.

That’s not guilt Eli is feeling. Nope. Not at all.

“What are you doing now?” he asks tentatively, careful to keep his tone neutral.

“Working.”

“Yeah, okay. On what?”

Rush makes a vaguely irritated noise. “Everyone’s just so curious, aren’t they? If you must know, I’m currently mapping out the layout of _Destiny_ ’s internal computer systems.”

Eli looks at the screen. Tilts his head.

“Looks kinda like donkey.”

_“Eli.”_

“No, really. If you tilt your head this way…” Eli trails off. His half-hearted attempt at levity has fallen predictably short. Why he’s even trying to cheer up the man he openly resented having to save is beyond him. This is the first proper conversation they’ve had since Rush more or less tried to bully Eli into getting Ginn and Perry out of system quarantine until Eli reluctantly admitted that he didn’t exactly know how.

“Ginn did most of the calculations,” Eli had confessed, and now he curses the way his voice had quavered as he said it. Knowing where she is now, it…well, it isn’t a nice thought. “I just inputted them. Besides, Young ordered me not to.”

At that confession Rush had tried to storm out but only succeeded in presumably getting dizzy and needing to grasp the ship’s walls for support as he slunk out of the control interface room. TJ had poked her head in minutes later in search for her wayward Scottish patient, who was and apparently still is doing a fine job of evading her.

Eli wonders if he can somehow bribe Rush into actually getting some rest. Then he wonders why he’s still expending energy in caring about the selfish bastard.

Rush, oblivious to Eli’s mental conundrum, lets out a little frustrated growl as he resumes tapping away at the console.

“You’re looking for a way to get them out, aren’t you?” Eli asks quietly.

Rush doesn’t miss a beat.

“Aren’t you?”

 _That_ throws Eli off. The colonel told him no, not under any circumstances, not until there’s a way of doing it that won’t endanger Rush or the ship’s systems or anything else. And the only people who could possibly figure that out are now sealed within said systems.

“But that’s…I mean, we kind of can’t?” Eli valiantly tries to recover. “There are literal _terabytes_ of calculations that would have to be done before we could work out how to access those locked systems, not to mention actually _opening_ those systems, and - ”

“Well, we’d better get started, then, hadn’t we?”

“Young won’t be happy when he finds out.”

“Young can worry about it when we actually get close to figuring it out.” Rush has his battered notebook out again, rifling furiously through the pages as he rubs the worn end of his pencil against his forehead. He hasn’t given Eli a single glance this entire time, his gaze determinedly flickering between notebook and console and back again. When Eli hesitates, however, his eyes finally dart up to meet the other man’s.

“Are you going to help me?” Rush’s face is always hardened, his expression forever caught somewhere between caustically annoyed and a perpetual state of “I-can’t-believe-I-stranded-myself-with- _these_ -idiots-of-all-people.” But now, either the scientist is slipping or he’s trying to play Eli with pity - those have to be the only explanations, after all - because for an instant Eli is at least 97.58% certain that he caught a shred of vulnerability in those eyes.

And, fuck, maybe that’s the tipping point. Maybe Rush is just that good at emotional blackmail.

(Eli finds that putting “Rush” and “emotion” in the same sentence seems rather contradictory. Unless “emotion” is indeed followed by “blackmail.”)

Either way, Eli sighs, resigned, and takes his familiar spot in the console opposite Rush.

“What have we got so far?”

“Not much, just a tentative layout.”

“Will that be enough?”

“It’s a start.”

 


End file.
